Two Stormy Weeks . . But I See the Sun Peeking Through

Random picture of Lola--it's so classically her.  She's got drawing supplies outside without permission; she's on the front porch surrounded by chalk drawings; she's got her manicure set for company as she works on Pokemon art.

 

We have a couple of birthdays in September, and our activity schedule has been rather full, so we shuffled birthday celebrations around to less full days.  However, that made the first week of September very, very full!

Little Princess is our resident baker, cake decorator, and cake decorating teacher, so she was quite busy!!!

One simple, elegant cake

One fun Pokemon cake--this is Gastly

Little Princess could quite successfully open a gluten-free bakery.  These cakes were so delicious, so moist, so fluffy, so perfect!!

But she doesn't want to. 

So we get to enjoy everything she bakes. :)

On the subject of Little Princess' baking, we've accidentally started the tradition of her making us all homemade chocolate chip cookies on dance days.

She has the cutiest patootiest kitchen helper and taste tester.

She also bakes bread and dinner rolls (both gf and wheat), and she's got a plan to make apple butter cinnamon rolls in the coming week or so.

Lucky us! 

Behaviors were less intense than the week before, but they still interrupted school and life and left me feeling incapable of leading lessons much of the time.

Fortunately, Morning Meeting is a given.  Most of the kids will do their math on the tablets whether I remind them to or not.  Most behaviors wait until after I've had a chance to work with the teens on grammar and history.  And evening reading is a chance for us all to connect.

I got a kick out of seeing them both in their gray hoodies and hair in buns, holding their hands in almost the same positions as they diagrammed sentences.

I did introduce what the kids are calling "bin school."  I set up a cheap magazine bin for each of the 6 kids (I think I'll invest in better holders; the ones I got at the dollar store are too tippy.).  In the bin, each child has 2-3 workbooks--handwriting, copywork, spelling, general language arts, reading comprehension, etc.  

No one has all of these subjects!  

It's mostly independent work.  The 4 who have The Good and the Beautiful language arts books do need to sit with me some of the time, but I just plunk myself on the floor near them all and help as needed.

I'd say the kids worked on these 5 out of 8 possible school days (we don't do "bin school" on dance days).

71% isn't a great score, but I'll call it a success given what's been going on here.

Grammie went home.  Sir Walter Scott flew her home one day, and he returned to us the next day.  We began having emergencies within an hour of his leaving, but he was still available by phone, and he was able to talk Brother down to a rational place.  

I'm so grateful he has a calming effect on Brother.

(Though, I'm equally glad he wasn't able to work his magic just the other day.  He was doing his level best, but Brother still ran away.  I'm not glad Brother ran, nor am I glad that Sir Walter Scott felt bad, but it was so nice to NOT be the reason Brother blew up and ran.  

Sir Walter Scott came into the room explaining all of the things he did to try to help Brother, and I just nodded my head and told him I knew exactly how he felt at that moment.  

I felt not alone.)

Yahtzee is the new game of the season.  If the kids aren't playing Pokemon, they're playing Yahtzee.

Or they're reading.

(Actually, this picture is of Baymax watching Ladybug do math, but it fooled me into thinking they were reading together because this is what they look like almost every day, and they're usually reading!)

Playdough and clay have figured largely in our days, too.

One day I did school with a young Jedi.

A week ago, several of us were fighting colds.  I looked at Nature Angel and Little Princess, saw their exhausted, vacant eyes, and I sent them to bed while I took the rest of the kids to the park.

I only took 2 pictures.

It was a peaceful experience.

Our science theme for the month is the human body.  We're not doing well at actually studying together, but I ordered about 30 anatomy books from the library, and I'm seeing them all over the house.  Kids are sharing random anatomy facts with me, too.  I also bought them each a Dover human anatomy coloring book, and they work on those while I read aloud and while we listen to music.

The only drawback has been explaining that the color key for each layout does not represent the actual colors inside our bodies. :) :) :)

We watched an anatomy for kids video, but the kids said it was too basic, so I'm going to have to do some previewing for specific videos they can watch about various body systems.

We're reading a biography about Florence Nightingale (Landmark) and another about Clara Barton (Childhood of Famous Americans).  It's funny to think that my kids already know more about the human body than these women, who pushed forward the boundaries of the medical field, ever did.

Our composer for the month is Franz Joseph Haydn.  We've listened to The Surprise Symphony, The Farewell Symphony, and a few of the more popular choruses from The Creation.

Reading this book really made the symphony itself come to life.  We were spellbound as the musicians left the stage.

We're reading a bunch of Brazilian folktales (with hopes of reading folktales from more of Latin America as well), a series of mini-biographies about great Latin Americans, and stories about the earliest English settlers and the native Americans with whom they interacted.  I'm pleasantly surprised by the representation of the native Americans in the selections.

Homeschool soccer started.

The kids are thrilled.  And while I chafe at being stuck at the park for hours on Saturday morning, I have to admit that I'm very happy for them because they love it so much.

I got a picture at dance practice.

This is our best effort at the final pose of our opening number.  There are a couple of kids missing, and the 3 3-year-olds are wild cards, but it'll look great in a few weeks.

Brother and Baymax are both settling down a little bit now.  July-September have been difficult for the past several years, and I think that might be the case this year, too.  It's good to have records that show patterns and can help us cope with what happens.  

I just have to remember not to be surprised next year.

And to figure out how to prevent/lessen the impact of their challenges.